The trial of a lawsuit brought by a Ruston Police patrol supervisor against the Ruston Police Department and its police chief started this week in federal court.
Jury selection was reportedly completed Monday.
In October 2022, Sergeant Kayla Loyd filed the suit alleging she had been passed over for promotions, harassed, humiliated in front of other officers and the public, made to use inferior equipment, and wasn’t afforded the same training opportunities as male officers because she is female.
Loyd claimed RPD retaliated against after she asked city officials for help.
In 2023, U. S. District Judge Terry Doughty considered the city’s motion for summary judgment and ruled the suit could proceed on Loyd’s accusation RPD denied her transfer to the position of criminal investigator on several occasions because she is female.
Doughty quashed three of the four claims alleged by Loyd, including retaliation, a hostile work environment and disparate treatment from other employees. The retaliation claims were dismissed mostly on technical grounds.
Doughty determined Loyd’s alleged hostile work environment “was not frequent, severe, or humiliating enough to interfere with her work performance as a supervisor.”
The judge wrote in his ruling that Loyd met “her burden in proving a prima facie case of discrimination,” noting that during Chief Steve Rogers’s 15-year tenure he had never assigned a female officer to the criminal investigation unit although several males had been so assigned. In several cases, the male officers had less police experience than Loyd.
Last year, other female former officers told the news media of discrimination and workplace retaliation they allegedly endured while working at the Ruston Police Department.
